Saturday, October 17, 2009

Beyond Performance Art

Using the “poshlust parody” style of Gogol and Nabokov is just one way to do Snarke performance art. “Queer Quiche” was simply a rather modest example of that style.

Another Snarke performance art style is Proustian:

“They came to my mind pell-mell and I felt that that must surely be the hall mark of their genuineness.”—Marcel Proust, The Walk by Swann’s Place (1913).

For example, last night I couldn’t sleep. It was a long Saturday night. I looked up at the bedroom ceiling, smoking a cigarette. Watching all the cobwebs drifting nonchalantly in my lonely Miss Havisham bedroom. The rotting wedding cake was leaning against the wall and young Pip had stood me up for our usual card game with Estelle by going out for a slutty date with the girl next door.

In the middle of moping and meandering through this rather moody midnight session of myopic insomnia—a couple of short stories suddenly popped into my mind. It’s funny how it worked. I was propped up in bed with pillows, not being able to sleep—my normal bitchy Nabokov-Gogol muse flat as a flat tire. The monsoon rain was beating on the window—another boring Saturday night.

There I was in my puce kimono—the silk one with the pale puce fuchsias. All dressed up—and nobody to blow. Did I say that? That’s not true—I wasn’t some old Raymond Chandler—playing Solitaire in a dumpy hotel room entertaining some bellboy. Although some may think I’m rather lewd—doing parodies like “Queer Quiche.”

Although I have been slumming in the Blogosphere lately posting louche ditties like “Rough Trade”—

http://www.snarke.com/2008/10/high-school-confidential.htmlThese next two short stories are performance art parodies of two short stories by Vladimir Nabokov: “Basket Case” based on “Signs and Symbols” and “Thugs from Topeka” based on “Cloud, Castle, Lake.” (Collected Short Stores of Vladimir Nabokov)

What’s Proustian was the way they came pell-mell to me writing in bed—which gave me the feeling that surely such spontaneity must have been the hall mark of their genuineness.All of these somewhat skanky poshlust performance pieces blogging away in my decadent dying brain cells are simply shameless diversions to entertain myself. I can’t help it—I love to ogle at my douchebag doppelganger on the internet screen. You know what they say—publish or perish, my dear. So amidst all the ruins and rubble of my daily perishing psyche, I do this shameless plundering of my bourgeois boredom, excuse me, performance art.

“The Basket Case” is based on Nabokov’s sad story “Signs and Symbols" and a shorter rather campy piece called “Thugs from Topeka” is based on Nabokov’s devilishly dystopian story “Cloud, Castle, Lake” about my favorite crummy poshlust Red State stuck out there in the middle of nowhere. Please never go to Topeka, Kansas—Dorothy doesn’t live there anymore.